2.1 The First Running ‘Boom’
Running initiated as a sport that was mainly practiced by athletes in private tracks and field clubs or as an extracurricular activity in school and university programs (Scheerder & Breeveld, 2015). Road running up to the 1960s was an unfashionable add-on to track running. People who ran on the streets for leisure purposes were perceived as disrupting the social codes between pedestrians since doing any form of physical exercise in public was considered to be ‘frivolous’, ‘silly’, and even ‘rebellious’ (Florida, 2002). But thanks to the cultural revolution undergone during the 60’s and 70’s, where informal manners and attitudes became increasingly accepted, the approach towards running began to change (Scheerder …show more content…
James Fixx, author of the 1970 best seller book ‘The Complete Book of Running’, is attributed to help start the fitness revolution in the US by showing the benefits that regular jogging had in people’s health. Adding to this, diverse experts on health started to explain to society the many benefits that long-lasting moderate exercise could have, and running was highly recommended as a sport to practice making more and more people to become runners. Running quickly became a central topic in the society and events like the Olympic Marathons started to have more media …show more content…
Making running a less structured and less competitive sport implied that people could enjoy running as a leisure-time pursuit and participate in organize races without the pressure of having to be the fastest one. Women were finally allowed to officially compete at the Boston Marathon in 1972, and a month later the New York ‘mini-marathon’ became the world’s first open read race for women (Robinson, 2011). The number of marathon entrants skyrocketed during the 70’s. As an example, the Boston Marathon considerably grew from 1,011 finishers in 1970 to having 5,958 in 1979. This trend expanded to all parts of the world while the number marathons were growing in awareness, popularity, and
Running initiated as a sport that was mainly practiced by athletes in private tracks and field clubs or as an extracurricular activity in school and university programs (Scheerder & Breeveld, 2015). Road running up to the 1960s was an unfashionable add-on to track running. People who ran on the streets for leisure purposes were perceived as disrupting the social codes between pedestrians since doing any form of physical exercise in public was considered to be ‘frivolous’, ‘silly’, and even ‘rebellious’ (Florida, 2002). But thanks to the cultural revolution undergone during the 60’s and 70’s, where informal manners and attitudes became increasingly accepted, the approach towards running began to change (Scheerder …show more content…
James Fixx, author of the 1970 best seller book ‘The Complete Book of Running’, is attributed to help start the fitness revolution in the US by showing the benefits that regular jogging had in people’s health. Adding to this, diverse experts on health started to explain to society the many benefits that long-lasting moderate exercise could have, and running was highly recommended as a sport to practice making more and more people to become runners. Running quickly became a central topic in the society and events like the Olympic Marathons started to have more media …show more content…
Making running a less structured and less competitive sport implied that people could enjoy running as a leisure-time pursuit and participate in organize races without the pressure of having to be the fastest one. Women were finally allowed to officially compete at the Boston Marathon in 1972, and a month later the New York ‘mini-marathon’ became the world’s first open read race for women (Robinson, 2011). The number of marathon entrants skyrocketed during the 70’s. As an example, the Boston Marathon considerably grew from 1,011 finishers in 1970 to having 5,958 in 1979. This trend expanded to all parts of the world while the number marathons were growing in awareness, popularity, and